A program like this makes perfect sense in a city where one in five kindergartners is obese, and when you consider the environmental impact of not producing those weekly orders of thousands of pounds of meat, it’s a no-brainer.

• The nutritional drinks typically consumed by the old and infirm taste pretty good. Chocolate Ensure is like a thin milkshake in a handy little bottle. The only downside is that the second ingredient is sugar. The third? Corn syrup.
• Organic pureed soups in a box are also surprisingly good.
• Despite my love of mashed potatoes, no amount of butter can make them satisfying four meals in a row.
• Chocolate pudding is very easy to make from scratch. I chose a recipe from Simply Recipes because it didn’t require a double boiler, and with an egg involved, I convinced myself eating two cups in one sitting helped my protein intake.
• Do not schedule wisdom tooth extractions before major food-related holidays. Today should have involved a chicken finger sub, but instead I nibbled on some boiled dumplings.
• No amount of painkillers could make The Watchmen seem like a good movie. All I wanted to see was a giant squid attack.
• It’s difficult to focus on reading post-extraction, but I was able to get some design work done. You can see the redesign of my personal website at mocahill.com.

Undergoing major oral surgery is bad enough, but tomorrow also happens to be a big potluck at work. I’m lucky to have a number of colleagues that are avid home cooks, so the fact I will be unable to consume any of their dishes is a culinary tragedy. There is a regional theme, so I made a batch of Irish cream cookies as the boiled foods of my homeland aren’t the best crowd pleasers.

I’ll see you on the flip side, AD readers. If I believed in a higher power, I’d ask you to pray for me, but instead, just eat a whole lot of crunchy, spicy food on my behalf.

I have posted my New Year’s resolutions on the web since 2005, believing that if I post them in a public forum and revisit them at the end of the year, I am more likely to follow through. I’ve never accomplished every single one, but I believe I’ve completed more of them as a result.

Before I launch into a review of last year’s resolutions and provide the new list for 2010, I have to say that 2009 was the most difficult in my quarter century of existence, with months of unemployment and fighting to find freelance work taking its toll. I felt crippled creatively, devoting all of my energy to job hunting and stressing about finances, but cooking and this blog provided a welcome relief.  When I put on my headphones and entered the kitchen to cook dinner or bake, everything else fell away.

Despite its hardships, I ended 2009 in a good place (particularly with the holidays). I’m employed full time and doing work that I enjoy, my love life is back on track, and I also love where I live. Things can only go up from here.

2009 Resolution Review:
1. Find a job in this lovely financial meltdown: Done. Both freelance work and my current full time employment.
2. Post on Apartment Dining once every two days, post on my personal blog once a week: Well, I posted here three times a week for a good stretch, but definitely not on my personal blog. I wrote four posts there all year.
3. Finally send out some work to publications. I really have no excuse at this point: Submitted to a handful of publications, but nothing was accepted.
4. Be more conscious of spending and increase balance in my savings account: I was very conscious of spending, but didn’t have much left over to put in my savings account.
5. Once finances stabilize, take another writing class and make sure it’s an actual workshop, not reading work aloud once a week: Finances didn’t stabilize (and still haven’t completely).
6. Related to #5: take a cooking class: Again, no stable finances.
7. Increase overall creative output: Done.
8. Read more, both fiction and food writing: Done.
9. Explore more of Brooklyn: Well, I moved to another part of Brooklyn, so mission accomplished.
10. If finances improve, take a real vacation: Again with the finances. I was so optimistic last January.

Resolutions for 2010
1. Continue to increase creative output, and if enough suitable work is ready, submit to at least two publications per month.
2. Maintain a daily journal.
3. Increase the balance in my savings account.
4. Take care of myself, both physically and mentally. This means regular check-ups at the doctor and maintaining a healthy work/life balance.
5. Attend more cultural events in New York.
6. Go on a culinary adventure at least once a month.
7. Cook dinner or have leftovers four days a week. Related: Bring lunch to work four days a week.
8. Post here at least twice a week, ideally three times a week.
9. Redesign my personal website.
10. Go on weekend adventures. Montreal? Jersey? Boston? Anything’s game.

To help ring in the New Year, I’ve posted a few of my favorite photos from the holidays after the jump. You can see the full album in my Flickr set.

The roommates at our holiday party:

Erin’s Spritz cookies:

The morning after the party/blizzard:

My mother’s baklava cookies:

The Christmas Eve table at my mother’s in the Adirondacks:

The toppings of the Peppermint Stick Roll from Friendly’s are precious:

My sister on Christmas morning:

Cake at my Aunt Pam’s on Christmas:

The Christmas dinner table at Aunt Pam’s:

The Cahill cousins (plus two significant others, but I bet you can’t pick them out of this line-up):

An ornament on Alison and Nick’s tree on New Years Eve:

A deer on their side table:

Ramsey and I:

Alison counting it down:

A new feature on AD will also be the occasional video. I picked up a Flip HD camera at Target during a serious Black Friday sale, and I put it to use for the first time this weekend at my apartment. My roommates and I threw our first cocktail party, and I documented the preparation for the event, from the pitchers of sangria to the Krispie Kringle.

Cocktails and Cookies from Mo Cahill on Vimeo.

• Don’t eat anything that’s still alive (recently shucked oysters excluded).
• Always use real butter and never use skim milk.
• Order the half or small plate. Then, order dessert.
• When at a fancy restaurant, kick off the night with the most absurd cocktail on the menu.
• If a food has more than four legs and you’re not lost in the woods, proceed with caution.
• Try a bite of every new food that you’re offered.
• Baked goods taste better when they’re shared.

What are your food rules?

I have tried to start an apartment garden a number of times and have always been met with failure. The first plants died during an ill-timed vacation, the next (pictured above) wilted for reasons unknown, and my beautiful basil plants became infested with whiteflies. I can keep my non-edible houseplants alive, but when it comes to plants that can help me cook and save me money, I might as well be watering them with Roundup Weed Spray. It’s for this reason that I’m envious of Brooklynites that are not only succeeding with their urban gardens, they’re thriving.

Eagle Street Rooftop Farm is exactly what it sounds like: a 6,000 square foot farm on a warehouse roof in Greenpoint where you can find organic produce being grown. It’s a fantastic concept and from what I’ve been reading, it’s working. Local restaurants have started using the produce (delivered the day it’s harvested by bicycle) and the public can come buy fresh produce, learn about farming, and even pick their own vegetables on the roof on certain days. Check our their official site for full details.

Pictured above: Me at age 4 or 5, along with the neighborhood gang. Identities have been concealed to protect the innocent.

I will officially turn twenty-five at 2:53pm today. The combination of high temperatures and my birthday means no cooking for me, save for possibly throwing together a salad for dinner. In the meantime, I leave you to ponder the ultimate birthday question: cake, pie, or other dessert?

I have always been a fan of cake. The cakes for most of my childhood birthdays were made by the same woman in her home on the South Side of Binghamton, decorated to match the themes of my birthday parties. The flavor and texture of the buttercream frosting was the best part, with its cavity-inducing sugar levels and a light crust.

My father scanned a few photos for me so I could share a few past cakes and a few theme parties. Take a walk down narcissism lane and enjoy a few classic Mo birthday photos after the jump.

For my second birthday, everything was decked out with crayons. I insisted on drawing rainbows with the correct color order (ROYGBIV) and this continued throughout my preschool and elementary school years. I’m not sure how this started, but it drove my fellow students nuts when I would correct them during art time.

I don’t know what age I’m turning in this photo, but I am clearly not pleased. The seashells and random couch suggest my birthday was taking place during the family’s yearly trip to Long Beach Island. Translation: no delicious cake made by the woman from the South Side.

This was taken as I opened gifts at my neighbor’s house for an unknown birthday. As you can tell, I am completely psyched. This horse stable was on my shelf until after I graduated from college.

For my fourth or fifth birthday, my parents went all out with a carnival theme. They set up a tent in the backyard, built carnival games, had face painting, and possibly a cotton candy machine. The cake involved balloons and various other carnival items. I’m in the middle here, wearing a fashionable lace collar and daintily wiping my hands on a napkin:

I was adorable until about the age of seven, at which time my outgoing, let-me-introduce-myself-to-strangers, and cute-button-nosed self started losing baby teeth and getting awkward. The end times begin below as I prepare to go trail riding for another birthday.

And now we come to my current birthday. I don’t have a photo yet, but Ramsey and I will be heading into Manhattan for cupcakes and a little bit of shopping. While I won’t be having my favorite childhood cake, I think eating red velvet cupcakes in Chelsea with my wonderful boyfriend will be just as good.

I’m looking for new dishes to try in my kitchen. What’s your favorite food? Is there something you’ve always wanted to learn more about or try to make? Which impossibly difficult dish do you want me to attempt and document every moment of the success or failure?

E-mail your suggestions to mo@apartmentdining.com (or post in the comments) and include:
-First name and last initial
-Location
-Dish
-Reason for suggestion
-A link to your website (if you have one)

I’ll pick out my favorite submissions, research them, cook them, and then post all of the results here.